I know what you all think about the OJ Simpson trial — but this is why it was important (WATCH OUR OJ SIMPSON SPECIAL ON FRIDAY NIGHT AT 7pm in our ON THE RECORD time slot)

It is terrible when someone is wrongfully convicted – and spends years and years, sometimes life, in prison for that wrongful conviction. Read below and find out why I will defend the trial coverage – even with all the circus like parts – to my grave (and Marvin Anderson is NOT the only person – there are many more this happened to):

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“DNA was so complex and complicated that nobody really asked for it,” Van Susteren said. “They might find some man or woman, usually man, sitting in some country jail someplace in the middle of some state, and all of a sudden after watching O.J. Simpson — because the world did — he asks for a DNA test.”

One of those was Marvin Anderson, who at age 18 was convicted of a rape he didn’t commit. After a decade in prison and letters to politicians and talk-show hosts, a counselor suggested he contact Scheck and Neufeld. At that time, Anderson was one of a handful to pursue exoneration through DNA evidence. After the Simpson coverage, the entire country — along with its falsely accused and wrongfully convicted — knew of this new frontier.

“The O.J. Simpson trial made the world know about DNA,” said Anderson, now a 50-year-old volunteer firehouse captain in Hanover, Va. He was exonerated in 2002, two decades after the rape victim incorrectly identified him in a police lineup.